A show-and-tell
for adults that shows how bad homelessness really is and demonstrates the
intimacy and horror of what nurses do

Cathy Crowe

A trusted
friend recently implored me to bring my nursing black bag (actually it’s a
knapsack) to a very public event that we were planning to attend. He
advised me, as only he can do: “People will find your bag so interesting
they will learn a lot about what you do when they see what’s inside.” So I
grudgingly lugged my 30-pound black outreach bag, which had given me nine
months of a rotator-cuff injury last year, on a five-hour trip to Ottawa for
its five minutes of fame.

It was a very
public show-and-tell.

The last time
I had opened my black bag so conspicuously was on the altar of a United
Church in Toronto. It was the minister’s idea. She invited the children to
the altar to sit with me, before they dashed off to Sunday school, at which
point I would give the first sermon of my life to adults on the topic of
homelessness.

One by one,
the children were invited to put their hands into the darkness of my black
bag to pull out a surprise. To each surprise, the minister asked each
child: “Why do you think Nurse Cathy carries socks in her bag? Why does she
carry granola bars and milkshake drinks and vitamins?”

The children,
with sweet and innocent expressions of concern, quickly responded with all
the right answers. Sadly, I thought to myself, they knew the answers.

This time,
the show-and-tell was meant for adults. The message: See how bad
homelessness is – I’m a nurse, but I have to carry socks, mitts, a blanket,
vitamins, even food!

On cue, my
hands nervously groped inside my black bag to find the right contents to
demonstrate the intimacy and horror of what I and other nurses do every
day. In a clinical fashion, I explained their purpose to the adults in the
room:

“You see, we
now see signs of starvation and malnutrition, so I carry Ensure.”

“We don’t
have enough sleeping bags in Toronto, so I carry these space blankets.”

“The duct tap
is for taping the soles back on shoes, but also for taping cardboard
together for a roof.”

As I spoke,
my heart raced. I wondered later – how had the contents of my bag and the
way I nurse changed so much? To my surprise, I began to cry.

It is said
that your body holds memories, and my nurse hands clearly remembered better
days. My nurse hands once did more useful things.

They
immunized the fat, healthy thighs of infants, they carefully measured
cardiac drugs to administer to young heart patients, they bathed both the
elderly lady after her surgery and the 24-year-old Italian-Canadian woman
after her death. My hands once mixed linseed poultices, rubbed 20 backs a
night before darkness fell and, by flashlight, checked intravenous drips,
catheters and other tubing. They made hot milk in the middle of the night
and then, later at home, soothed a child with too-frequent earaches.

I’m thankful,
in retrospect, that my hands always felt needed. To help colleagues make 30
beds on a ward on a short-staffed Saturday morning; to write a letter for an
elderly stroke victim to his long-lost sister; to shop for canned salmon and
strawberries for the retired recluse that I was told to discharge from my
public-health nursing caseload (“he was not achieving any goals,” said my
supervisor).

More
recently, they held on to a dying father’s hands.

These are
good uses for hands.

My black bag
is still at my friend’s house. Despite being so full, it feels so empty.

My bandages
no longer cover the wounds of my patients. My vitamins will not prevent the
white plague of tuberculosis from taking another victim. I cannot even help
someone achieve one peaceful night of safety and sleep. Only roofs will do
that. And I am not a carpenter.